Russia Program and Treatments

[NeilV]

Do the people who are responsible for the Russian Bee Breeding Program, including the ones on the island and the authorized breeders who produce/sell the breeder queens, use any treatments for any diseases? Or do they compare performance of the bees without any chemical interference at all? If they do treat, what do they treat for and what do they use? Thanks.

[Bizzybee]

That's an interesting question and maybe someone on the board actually knows for a fact.

I just always assumed that they use standard protocol in the government approved arsenal. A regiment of POISONS and ANTIBIOTICS just in case they might by the odd chance happen to come across something bad. Sorry for yelling. :)

In the end I suppose it doesn't matter what they do with the bees. They wind up in your hands where they are only treated with tender loving care or tuff love if that need to be the case.

[BjornBee]

Each of the 13, or was it 14 members of the Russian bee association is responsible for maintaining two distinct lines of Russian bees. They have protocol and guidelines. No mite treatments is one of their marketing points.

I think they have a good protocol in place, but queens will still be open mated from what I understood. So will these queens be bred any better than the next person using pure Russian queens and open bred? I think the breeders association will probably see benefits of the protocol and the fact they are working as a group to maintain lines, select for further genetic benefits, etc. So I see them perhaps a leg up on the stand alone breeder who is operating alone. But other quality breeders may produce open mated queens of similar results, and maybe offer them at a lower cost.

Prices have been set at $25 per queen for verified queens monitored for brood pattern, etc., up to 30 days. Select queens, those monitored for performance and the offspring, monitored for 60 or more days will be sold at $35.

If you keep it in perspective, what they are doing is fine. It has its benefits. But certainly not anything that another group or a different line could not achieve.

[Bizzybee]

"I think they have a good protocol in place, but queens will still be open mated from what I understood. So will these queens be bred any better than the next person using pure Russian queens and open bred?"

Given the "others" know what they are doing and following practices to maximize the likelihood their queens are mated to their drones, no I don't see any difference. All the breeders come from the same origin.

Anyone serious about maintaining a line of any kind of bee would be hopefully following the same or very similar guidelines.

[TwT]

http://www.russianbreeder.org

http://www.russianbreeder.org/RQBA%20Plan.pdf

[NeilV]

Twt, thanks for the links. I knew about the first site but not the second. A lot of the stuff about the breeding programs is over my head. However, it did repeatedly say that the colonies that were in the program to be evaluated are not treated with chemicals and are removed from the program altogether if they are about to collapse.

Anybody know what the people in the program are doing treatment-wise for the colonies they are using to produce commercial queens?

As to the comments about the for sale queens being open-mated (not the breeders), I have spoken with one member of the RBBA, Mr. Tubbs, and he says that at least he goes to great efforts to isolate his mating yards and flood the area with Russian drones. I guess he can't provide 100% assurance, but he explained to me that at least for him he is really trying hard to produce pure Russians, not Russian crosses. I got the impression that was the whole goal of the other members of the RBBA.

Anybody know anything more about that?

[TwT]

Dwight Porter (Redtractor1) is a USDA Russian queen breeder, he can answer most of your question probably later this evening, right now I think he is building hives or supers..

[REDTRACTOR1]

There are 12 co-operators in the program at this time. As stated before no treatments are allowed, if treatments are required the queen and hive is out of the program. you have to be certified by the russian breeders program and you have to have at least 200 hives to be ib the program and dues are $350.00 a year. I have a mating yard that doesn't have any other bees except the russians and I flood the mating yard with russian drones. I acquired 12 russian queens from the usda as drone mothers to be mated with the queens that i received last year (2007) from charlie Harper. That will be the 2008 queen mothers. I strive very hard to keep these bees as pure as possible in an open mating setting. Hope this helps.
Dwight

[drobbins]

redtractor1,

I'm guessing you plan to sell some queens this year?
details?


Dave

[REDTRACTOR1]

Drobbins,
Yes i am planning to sell some this year but i am all sold out until the first of May. I will have the new breeders by then also. It will be dependent on the weather.
Dwight

[JC]

Do the people who are responsible for the Russian Bee Breeding Program, including the ones on the island and the authorized breeders who produce/sell the breeder queens, use any treatments for any diseases? Or do they compare performance of the bees without any chemical interference at all? If they do treat, what do they treat for and what do they use? Thanks.

Charlie Hasrper does not use any treatment, not even coating the bees with powder sugar.

[kirk-o]

I wonder if the Russian breeders also use the small cell with there bees?
kirkobeeo

[REDTRACTOR1]

Kirk o,
I don't know of any of the breeders in the russian program that uses small cell. There maybe some that i do not know about. I do not use any small cell.
Thanks Dwight